Effect of pressure relaxation and membrane backwash on adenovirus removal in a membrane bioreactor

Abstract

Pressure relaxation and permeate backwash are two commonly used physical methods for membrane fouling mitigation in membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems. In order to assess the impact of these methods on virus removal by MBRs, experiments were conducted in a bench-scale submerged MBR treating synthetic wastewater. The membranes employed were hollow fibers with the nominal pore size of 0.45 μm. The experimental variables included durations of the filtration (tTMP>0), pressure relaxation (tTMP=0) and backwash (tTMP<0) steps. Both pressure relaxation and permeate backwash led to significant reductions in removal of human adenovirus (HAdV). For the same value of tTMP>0/tTMP=0, longer filtration/relaxation cycles (i.e. larger tTMP+tTMP=0) led to higher transmembrane pressure (TMP) but did not have a significant impact on HAdV removal. A shorter backwash (tTMP<0 = 10 min) at a higher flow rate (Q = 40 mL/min) resulted in more substantial decreases in TMP and HAdV removal than a longer backwash (tTMP<0 = 20 min) at a lower flow rate (Q = 20 mL/min) even though the backwash volume (QtTMP<0) was the same. HAdV removal returned to pre-cleaning levels within 16 h after backwash was applied. Moderate to strong correlations (R(2) = 0.63 to 0.94) were found between TMP and HAdV removal.

Keywords: Backwash; Human adenovirus; Membrane bioreactor; Membrane fouling; Pressure relaxation.